A Time After The Fall
by Hannah
Summary: 20 years after Harry defeated Voldemort and life has made some unexpected changes. Yeah, I know it's been done before. Heck, this story was one of the first but I recently went back and have decided to go back over it and fix it. r/r!
1. An ending and a fresh sart

THE TIME AFTER THE FALL  
  
By :Hannah  
  
Disclaimer: I don't own anything but the plot and what ever people you don't know.  
  
Note: I wrote this like a year ago or so. It was one of the first things I ever wrote and I really like the plot but my writting left a lot to be desired. It still does but I'm going to try and find the time to redo this this thing compleatly.  
  
Feedback: Since I'm redoing this, that would mean teh world to me but I'm noy going to finsh redoing it if no one reviews.  
  
I was told once that if you want to tell a story then you should write so that your words paint a picture in the mind of your reader. Now I'll admit to never having written much of anything before and it doesn't take and art critic to tell you how poor my drawings are. But I gave art a try and now I find that I want to give writing a try if only to spin one simple tale. And so I paint for you.  
  
The scene was a dusky evening. The trees were full of reds and yellows as well as purples and blues from the setting sun behind them. They were scattered along the gently sloping hillside until they reached the top where they grew more dense in number and foliage. All that could be seen from this vantage point was a small dirt path leading you away into the dark forest. A youngish man with disordered black hair and green eyes walked the path but his body language belied his placid face. He was afraid to enter those woods. But why, I do not know. Let us set in motion the picture shall we? Yes.  
  
Harry Potter walked slowly along the dirt path. The trees seemed to welcome him but his feet shuffled along. His mind reeled under the weight of a thousand things. Pictures he'd seen on the news a few minutes ago, the poor man he had passed on his way home earlier this evening, and even the half starved dog that had followed him around for a while as he walked from the metro station to his office. But the thing namely on his mind was the place he was headed.  
  
It was a hidden little clearing in the woods beyond our sunset colored trees that was only known to him and one other person. It was a cemetery. Two unmarked stones only but a cemetery none the less. Today, that was his Destination. Sad as it was.  
  
Emotions and memories assaulted him as he made his way cautiously deeper into the thick trees. The haunting aroma of another woman's perfume. The screams that haunted even his most pleasant dreams. It all came rushing back to his mind forcing the oppressive thoughts he'd been having out and replacing them with ones harder to bare in silence. But he did. If only for her.  
  
She had been his first love. And surprisingly, it had not been one of the girls his friends had expected her to be. Not Ginny or Hermione or Cho. Not who they expected... Kinda like with him how they'd all expected some great guy who'd defeated Voldemort and they found him to instead be just Harry. Yeah, that kind of unexpected. She was also his first real loss... Well, that he could remember.  
  
Not like with his parents where he was too small to understand it all or even when Cedric died and he did understand it. Well, as much as we ever understand why a person dies. Harry hadn't really know the Hufflepuff boy too long or too well. This was so different from any of that. So apart from it all.  
  
She had been his first love. I mean true love. The kind the write poems and epic plays about. The kind every one wishes they could have and hold on to but only those rare few actually get to. It was that kind of love. They were going to get married someday. She had drawn a picture of her dream dress and he had already picked out her ring on a Hogsmead visit one Saturday when she wasn't watching. To this day he could see her face though the years had washed it of the sharp colors it had once held. To this day he could hear her screaming at the man who would spell her death that he was no better than the dirt she walked on. A dirt Harry once said he would have kissed but raised his standards after hearing that.  
  
That was just the kind of person she was though. Ready to do something so foolish to save the one she loved. It was a part of her that made Harry stop and wonder what star he'd been born under to deserve her.  
  
Looking back, Harry knew that she must have known what was coming. They both heard the words echo in the still air. He'd had watched her face as the curse was fired. Nothing showed on her face. No fear. No hate. But also no peace. Nothing would come from that blank expression. But just before the curses hit her, she did something no one would ever believe. She smiled. She looked death right in the eye and smiled her brightest smile.  
  
Upon impact, it was not the girl who felt the hit. It was Harry. Harry was so blind with every emotion imaginable welling up on his heart and clouding his mind, that he had begun to scream curses at the monster before Voldemort even had a chance to react. She was dead before he knew what happened. And for the boy who lived, it was over too soon. He had not suffered enough.  
  
But even so, Harry threw down his wand and ran over to the snake eyed lifeless form on the ground and began to punch and kick the lifeless body of the former dark lord. Bones cracked and snapped. A rib erupted from his chest. Blood ran down Harry's arms in red rivers that fell in waterfalls to the ground and burrowed into the earth. Harry had never been so blinded with rage and hate and the feeling of lost love.  
  
After about ten minutes of this, he fell to the ground. So tired he couldn't stand. He didn't want to. He wanted to die there and be with her but he had nothing with which to commit the deed. His wand lay too far off and he wasn't certain the killing curse could be performed on one's self. And so he lay there with his arms protectively around the girl waist with his head buried in her back. Another painting I give to you though I fear you may not want it.  
  
But want it or no, that was how they found him the next morning. Barley living and not wanting to. The woman who'd found him was only a few years older than his 18. She's been walking in the woods just as she'd always done every morning. But today as she mounted that hill she knew it was going to be some what of a different sort of day. When she came upon the scene, she buried the bodies without question and dragged Harry's half dead body from the woods. She did not know what was going on and reacted on pure instinct. When Harry awoke in the muggle hospital, it was three days later and she sat be his bedside.  
  
The woman's name was Mia Adams. She'd come to see Harry everyday and when he did finally awake she was sitting there wondering who this mysterious stranger could possibly be. He had no name or anything distinctive on his person save his scar. He was referred to by the nurses as simply 'Joe in room 220'.  
  
Mia was fascinated by him. Having spent her childhood in one all girls school after another, most men had been foreign to her. Her father was never in the picture and she had only one male teacher. So who was this man she'd found? Why was he in the woods with two dead people? She'd told the police he'd been outside her house for fear they'd find the bodies but still it plagued her mind.  
  
She had no time for any more thoughts. He'd stirred. The questions she'd been asking flew right out the window in a single invisible gust of imagined wind. Mia was so startled by being jerked out of her reverie so fast that she let out a yelp.  
  
The doctors rushed in and began to ask questions and find out who the strange man was leaving Mia to simply listened as they hounded the man... no, amend that... boy who he was and what had happened to him.  
  
That day marked a turning point in Harry's life. He knew he shouldn't give out his name. Something in him screamed that now was not the time to give it out. It was like if he gave it to the men and women in the white coats he would lose what little he had left in the world. So when he blurted out, "Connor. Connor Harrison" It surprised him how readily the lie came.  
  
And now as "Connor" looked at the mounds of earth, marked only by plain stones stuck in the dirt he remembered that day. The people the rested under them remained nameless as his past. He couldn't even remember the girl's name anymore. Maybe it hadn't been "that kind of love" after all. But then what had it been? It didn't matter any more really.  
  
He remembered that as soon as he felt well enough and Mia had explained things to him, he came back here and found his wand were it had dropped in the confusion. He'd tried a few simple spells but none had worked. His magic was gone. He remembered how he'd looked lovingly at his wand and silently dug a small hole between the two stones and buried it. He'd never look back. How could he, the famous Harry Potter, the boy who lived, face the wizarding world with no magic? No. He'd lived as a muggle before and would again. No great lose in the long run.  
  
So from that day on, he gave it all up. He walked back to the village and Mia. He walked away from it all. His past and what might have some day been his future. All of it was behind him now and he meant to much to leave it there.  
  
As time went on Harry and Mia inevitably fell in love. This time I mean "that kind of love." Harry told her everything and that meant that she was the only one he ever told about his past. Maybe he did want to hold on to the past because he did, you know. As much as he didn't admit to it, he clung tightly to the past he was trying so hard to get rid of.  
  
And so, as the sun set over the tree tops, he walked back to the house. Away from the picture trees and the unmarked graves of his friend and his enemy. Towards his beautiful muggle wife and their beautiful muggle children and the lie that was his muggle life. But that was not ment to be... For when do any of us live the picture perfect life?  
  
  
  
TBC.........? 


	2. Story Time With Connor Harrison

A Time After the Fall  
  
Chapter Two  
  
Disclaimer: I don't own any of it!  
  
Note: Please tell me what you all think and sorry it's so short.  
  
  
  
Oh! You've come back have you? I had not expected any one to find themselves wrapped up in this tale! I am so delighted... Sorry, I seem to get a bit carried away at times. Forgive me. On to my story.  
  
Connor Harrison left his little house and went to work that morning just as he always did. And he drove down Ocean road away from their little suburban home outside of London. His destination that day, as always, was his nice corner office job at 'James and Jones Publishing'. The name had been a source of comfort in the familiar at first but now it just seemed ironic. He'd work there for the past six years. Ever since that day Mia had pulled him from the clearing in the woods.  
  
He'd told her at the time that his name was Connor Harrison and had later told her the truth about himself and his past. All of it. Magic and dark lords. Every last detail of it. To say she was surprised at the fact that magic was as real as her flesh and blood would have been an under statement. But she had been very supportive of his choice to live as a muggle. At first though, she tried to pursued him to go back to where he belonged so his children would not receive the same shock upon receiving their letters. He was firm in his refusal to both go back and even to let his children be a part of any of it.  
  
The two had fallen in love, as such things happen. Perhaps it was not madly in love but love which would eventually grow into something deeper than love. They became a part of each other and that was just one more excuse for Harry... er... Connor to stay away from his past. Every one he'd ever loved back there had died on him in some way or another.  
  
Mia Adams had become Mia Harrison only having known him for three months. Their grade white wedding was rushed but no one raised their eyebrows. A few rumor circulated about children and such but nothing came of it. For the most part, everyone found it very romantic and those who were close to the couple found it more so.  
  
Mia had helped Connor form a past which they both stuck to as firmly as Connor's refusal to go home again. It was a simple story. Connor had gone to a boarding school in Scotland for a few years and had met Mia at a party thrown by a mutual friend. Even though the party never happened, it was still a good past to have. Simple enough not to draw attention and yet still believable.  
  
So for six years the man known as Connor Harrison, who had no true past, no money, and no family other than his wife, had lived in Mia's tiny two bed room house near the woods. They had four young children. Vanessa age 4, Walter age 3, and the twins Juli and Dane aged one. They were a wiry and jumpy bunch of tots and their growing number reminded Harry of Ron's family... with no red hair.  
  
Every day he left the house to go to work at 6:30. Kissing his wife and kids good bye and driving off. Every night he got home at 6:00. Scooping the kids up into huge hugs as the ran to greet him. His visits to the little clearing in the woods had gotten less frequent as time went on.  
  
Mia had finished collage in the spring and began her career as an free lance writer shortly after Vanessa was born. In her spare time (what very little of it there was) she had begun her first novel. The story of a young man who found out all about magic and went off to school to learn and make trouble for the teachers. She also did all the baby-sitting while Connor did the shopping and cooking. Life in the tiny house by the woods fell into a steady rhythm. A study pounding drum by which to live. Rarely changing. But all things do change in time.  
  
On a fateful day in mid-April, as Connor left his house, no one knew he would get news that would change their lives forever. A chance to make things change and move. To go forward in life which Connor had lately found staring him blankly in the face. He got the word from his boss. Paul Jones.  
  
A short fat man to whom no one paid much attention, Mr. Paul had become fast friends with the man known as Connor Harrison who seemed to try and avoid as much attention as possible. Connor knew Mr. Paul as the man with a weakness for wild and fantastic fantasy stories. Things that only Connor truly knew existed just moments away from their everyday lives.  
  
Mr. Paul went over to the Harrison home often for dinner. But it was what happened after dinner that he really came for. For Connor told his children such magnificent tales of magic and wizardry schools. But he loved the kids as much as he loved their father's tales and they'd taken to calling him 'Uncle'.  
  
That night as Connor came home to his family, Mia could tell something was amiss. He acted like everything was normal but he was very bad at hiding his feelings. As he tucked the kids into bed and told them a wild story about a wizard boy named Harry Potter winning the Triwizard Cup, Mia watched him.  
  
"And so Cedric and Harry both grabbed the cup at the same time. As they did so, Harry felt himself being pulled and as soon as he felt this he relized that the cup must be a portkey..." An evil grin broke out on their father's face. "And that's it for tonight, kidos." Connor said finishing that night's story. They let out a single howl.  
  
"Some more! Please Daddy?!", cried Vanessa.  
  
"More!" Juli demanded her twin bobbing his head in agreement.  
  
But Connor was resolute and insisted that it was time to go to sleep and left the room. He brushed past Mia without a word and left the house. Looking out the window, she saw he was headed for the woods.  
  
He hadn't traveled this road in quite some time but still he knew every root and rock. Mia normally left him to his own devices as he went into the woods but tonight she followed at a distance. She hung back in the shadows until he began to cry softly. She'd never heard him cry. Rushing forwards she threw her arms around him and the two slowly sank to the ground.  
  
"Her name was Lisa. I remember now. She was my Lisa and now I'll never be able to come back here to see her" Connor murmured into his hands.  
  
" Why not?" asked Mia.  
  
" Mr. Paul asked me if I would go with the group to San Francisco to start the new publishing house. We're going the California" came the muffled reply.  
  
"That' s wonderful!" exclaimed Mia. " And you never know, we may some day come back... No, I know we'll come back." He made no reply and they sat there late into the night talking about the chances they would have in the states and the opportunities their children would have. And as the sun rose above the trees, they walked slowly home.  
  
A few hectic weeks later they were all set to go. All packed up and all the paper work done. Boxes lined the halls waiting to get shipped out. They even had a nice little house in a little town called Walnut Creek at a price that had made them blink. The town was a nice one (if some what expensive) and the house near the subway that Connor would use to commute.  
  
The day they were to leave dawned bright and clear. Connor thought it was the gods laughing at him. Shouldn't today be raining and ugly?  
  
They loaded all the kids into the Taxi van they'd called for and set off for the airport and as the plane left the ground, Connor watched as his beloved England faded from view like an old painting fading right off the canvas.  
  
TBC......? 


	3. Time Passes Slowly for the Lonesome

A Time After the Fall  
  
By: Hannah  
  
Chapter Three:15 Years Later  
  
  
  
Note: I don't won it. Please give me feedback!  
  
So I am informed that indeed some one has taken an interest in this small story I am attempting to tell. Bravo for you. I have told you of how Harry met and married Mia and they had a few children but now I would like to turn the tale over to a new thread. While Harry was living his wonderful life and settling down in the recesses of California's great north, Ronald Weasley was also living his life. So now we will go there to see that man.  
  
If twenty years ago you had sat down with one Ron Weasley and told him that in twenty years he would be considered the best minister of magic anyone had ever seen, he would have laughed outright. He would have then asked you which of his brothers put you up to the prank and walk off muttering about this and that and how he still hasn't finished his potions homework and would you please tell which ever brother it was to go shove his face in mud? Thank you. But now, that's what he was. Not known as The best friend of the now long gone Harry Potter, but instead, the best minister of magic the wizarding world had ever seen. He was a brilliant strategist and for once he did outshine his brothers.  
  
Fred and George's joke shop was so successful now that they had stores all over the world. Caretakers at schools all over the place had most if not all of their items on the list of things forbidden and teachers everywhere dreaded finding that fateful canary cream on their plat at dinner. But both were wealthy and wise in the ways of children and trouble and both were equally loved by the children who shamelessly bought up any and everything they could from their shops.  
  
Ginny meanwhile, was a wonderful muggle studies professor at Hogwarts (much to her father's delight). She was loved by all the students and not just because she would sneak them samples of the twins latest and greatest. She made learning fun but demanded a lot from her students. They in turn trusted her and at break times one could always find a crowd of students in her room asking about her years with the great Harry Potter.  
  
But not all of his brothers were as well off. I mean sure, Bill and Charlie were still happily working as they always had but there were others to consider. Like Percy. Percy, I am woefully sad to say, was dead. Not fifteen years ago when Voldmort had burst into the ministry building and killed old Fudge where he sat pouring over reports that he was publishing about the absurdities of the need for more security in the magic world. Percy had just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and had gotten in the way when the first curse was fired off. His own death only severe to stall Fudge's death for a few seconds more and only made Voldmort angrier. The next day Harry, Harry's girlfriend Lisa... a Ravenclaw... Lisa something-or-other, and Voldmort had all just seemingly fallen off the face of the earth. But Ron still outshone them all.  
  
He thought he was the luckiest man alive. Married to the best woman on the face of the earth with three wonderful children that were all ether in or a graduate of Hogwarts, more money in his vault than stars in the sky, and the job he never thought he'd have.  
  
But it still wasn't quit perfect. The only thing missing in his life was a best friend. Sure he had friends but not real ones. Some were after his money and others after his power. They fawned over him like the girls at school had fawned over Victor Krum. Not because they wanted to get to know him or because they thought he was devilishly handsome. No, it was because they wanted to say they knew him. They'd been to his house for dinner. Ron finally understood why Krum spent most of his time locked away in the library. None of his 'friends' knew the things the Harry, Hermione, and he had shared back at school. And there was no replacing that.  
  
But now Harry was gone to God only who knows where and Hermione was, well that was too much to bear. When Harry had left, Ron and Hermione had tried to console each other but teenage hormones had managed to get in the way and they fell in love. Or perhaps not so much love and lust. So they fell in lust and after graduation, when they'd still heard nothing of Harry, they got married. A big white affair with friends and family like it was supposed to be but Harry wasn't best man. They had a son named James and life was happy for a while. Soon, all of it , it turned out, had been too much for the young couple. They wanted to go out in the world and pursue their dreams. Not raise this little boy.  
  
As much as Ron loved his oldest son, every time he looked at him he was reminded of the darkest times if his life. The day he'd come home to hear James crying at the top of his lungs and a note from Hermione saying that she was gone to follow her dreams. That this just wasn't it.  
  
And so Ron had thrown himself into his work and James (their son) had been left with more baby-sitters than Ron could remember. Ron knew it was no way to raise a child. He himself had come from a family where contact and interaction were done without question. But now his son barely knew him from the man on the street and as time went by, Ron began to realize what he was doing to his son. But it was too late. They fought endlessly when in each other's presence and as much as James loved his father in that way that all children do, there was always that tension between them. The memories of those long gone years still fresh in their minds.  
  
James was nineteen now and a fairly decent Quidditch player. He played chaser for the Chudly Cannons. As much as Ron had loved the team in his younger years, his son's status on the team held him back. As minister he could have tickets to any game he wanted but his poor relationship with his son would have deterred from the game. So while James spent the days and months avoiding his father with obvious clarity, Ron spent the time doing the same in a more subtle way claiming he had to finish one project or another as an excuse to not attend those games. The pain cut both of them deeply yet neither would admit to it.  
  
Hermione's freedom, on the other hand, had not been long lasting at all. She had married some guy named Delmar Kellman (Ron knew him briefly from some where but could not recall where) and had three more children.. Not that Ron was one to talk. He'd gone off and had two more.  
  
So that was Ron's life for the last 20 years. As he walked down the road to his wonderfully opulent home, his thoughts wandered back to the meeting he'd just come from. Not that the exact words had an impression on his mind. No, it was what they had talked about. Since it was late May, they'd had their first meeting about the annual Harry Potter Day which was held every year on Harry's Birthday.  
  
It was a fun time of year for most folks. Trying to see who could look the most like him using both magical and muggle means, parting late into the night, and just celebrating freedom from the dark lord.  
  
But for Ron and a few others, it was a sad time. A time to remember the times they'd shared. Both the good and the bad. A time to remember the Harry they'd gotten know either in the classroom or on the Qudditch pitch.  
  
As Ron walked through the old town of Hogsmead, he remembered the times they'd spent in the local pub or candy shop. The pranks and adventures. Every little memory came rushing back at him forcing tears to his eyes. That all seemed so long ago. A life time almost. But time marches on doesn't it? And Ron had once prided himself on not dwelling on the past. It was time to live that.  
  
Walking along he looked at the kids of today. AS different as they all were, they still seemed to remind him of some escapade he'd been on with Harry. That red head was Ginny in the Chamber of secrets and that boy? Well he was Victor Krum. Yes, they were unwittingly repeating a secret history that they had no way of knowing but they did it in their own way.  
  
Looking up Ron saw that he'd wandered to one his brothers' stores. How ironic that the symbol of his childhood should mark the passing of these thoughts. He smiled as the happy memories once more assaulted him and walked on. Past the places they had hid and fought as children. Past the past and into the presently coming future. This would be the best Harry Potter Day ever. And nothing, come hell or high water, was going to ruin it for the minister.  
  
TBC..........? 


End file.
